St. Joe sweeps Menendez

With an emphatic breakaway dunk and a deft jumper from the baseline, Kenny Moore welcomed the Pedro Menendez boys basketball team to town.

Moore poured in a game-high 20 points, grabbed 13 rebounds and put the Flashes ahead for good with less than two minutes to play as St. Joseph Academy edged the visiting Falcons 57-53 on Friday night.

"He did a good job on the boards and down the stretch," Flashes coach Bob Esguerra said. "This was a good, classic ballgame."

After a pair of turnovers turned a four-point St. Joe lead into a 46-all tie, Moore responded.

He scooped up a loose ball, side-stepped a defender and hit a baseline jumper that put St. Joe (2-0) up for good at 48-46.

But the excitement was far from over.

A pair of free-throws pushed the Flashes' lead back to four, but Karl Kemp kept the Falcons in the contest up until the final seconds.

Kemp, who scored 19, answered with a 3-pointer and trimmed St. Joe's cushion to one with a free-throw on the ensuing trip up the court. But that's where the comeback stalled.

Four fouls in the final 47 seconds by Menendez (0-2) gave the Flashes a chance to seal the victory at the stripe. J.P. Clark and Tim Connor made sure of it.

Clark (16 points) and Connor (four points) combined to tally the Flashes' final seven points at the line.

"We did a good job of dictating the game down the stretch," Esguerra said. "The free-throw shooting and doing the fundamentals helped in the second half."

The St. Joe girls squad also had an outing to remember, building an early lead, then fighting off a Menendez comeback in a 49-36 win.

"In both games, our clutch free-throw shooting down the stretch got us the win," said Esguerra, who coaches both teams. "It was a great team win."

Surging to an 11-3 first-quarter lead, the Flashes (2-0) had lapses after halftime that turned a possible blowout into a dogfight.

Falcons guard Alia Spoele (12 points) ignited a 10-1 run with back-to-back baskets that helped Menendez cut St. Joe's lead to 30-27 heading into the fourth.That's when everything unraveled for the Falcons.

Trading fouls nearly every trip down the court in the final quarter, the outcome was sealed when Menendez hit just 4 of 21 free throws in the last frame. St. Joe, meanwhile, sank 17 shots from the line in that same span.